There’s been discussion lately about the role of the fatosphere on people’s perceptions and lives. Dr Samantha Thomas has done a for-real ivory-tower-shaking academic paper on how the fatosphere proactively challenges fat stigma, and sleepydumpling covers the same topic in Breaking Down Fat Stigma: Shame. Sonya at Lipmag was one of the interviewees for Dr Thomas’ paper.

The body plays a huge (BOOM BOOM!) role in a lot of feminist discussion, and things always get good and heated around one fact in particular: pregnancy and how you are probably Doing It Rong right this minute.

Pregnancy isn’t always wanted or continued, of course, and that’s why apparently I have to keep explaining that the “right to life” movement are a bunch of wanks with the intellectual honesty of a guppy.

And of course once Junior makes it out into the world it’s all downhill for progressive parents, who simply cannot win. Ever.

Another big issue of the past month has been identity, especially given Google’s being douchebags about what’s considered a “real” name (all the more aggravating because it’s based on needing “real” demographics to sell to shitbox marketers).

Deborah talks about the gender pay gap and another Deborah’s predictable privileged attitude towards it. Idiot/Savant covers the Greens’ and CTU’s calling of National’s bluff: if people can just ask labour inspectors to check there’s pay parity in their workplace, maybe we should just start doing that all the time.

And finally, a little collection of random items to fill out your reading.

Thanks to our lovely submitters, especially Chally and Rebecca who made my job a heck of a lot easier!

The 41st edition of the DUFC will be hosted at A Touch of The Crazy. As we still seem to be having issues with blogcarnival, send your submissions directly to stef_thomp [at] hotmail [dot] com. We’re four years in and going strong but we need your help to keep it awesome!

The list of DUFC contributors is woefully out of date, but feel free to peruse it in the meantime while I get some well-earned coffee.

The Standard’s resident trolls are of course ticking every available box on their bingo boards (come on, guys, no GUESS SHE DOESN’T KNOW ABOUT THE LAWS OF THE ROAD yet?), but fucking good on ya, Helen.

My name is Jaimie Veale, I am undertaking this research for my Doctoral thesis in psychology at Massey University. This research is testing a model that I developed to explain the development of gender-variance e.g. transsexualism, transvestism, and other forms of gender diversity. If you would like to know more about this model, you will be given the opportunity at the end of the questionnaire to read a more detailed explanation, and comment on whether you believe it is feasible.

Because you won’t be giving any information that will identify you, you and all the other participants in this project will be completely anonymous. In addition, the Apache server used to collect this data provides a high level of security.

If you wish to participate, you complete a multiple-choice survey of approximately 150 items. I estimate that this will take 30-55 minutes for you to complete. Completion and submission of the questionnaire implies acknowledgement you are over the age of 16 and give consent.

Really interesting questions, and amazingly inoffensive, and I cannot plug it more! Plus, not limited to NZers.